The Company

In 1983, Hans Nordelius and Mikael Carlsson began to work in the basement of a home located in the southern suburbs of Stockholm, creating the world's first dedicated digital drum for the commercial market. The product these two individuals designed was later entitled, 'Digital Percussion Plate 1'.

Post the introduction of their first invention, the Clavia team developed several more arguably groundbreaking digital percussion systems under the ddrum name. In 1995, Clavia released their first synthesizer known as the Clavia Nord Lead. From the utter success of the Clavia Nord Lead, Clavia later released several more Nord Lead virtual analog synthesizers which all included sequencer versions entitled the Nord Rack x; the Nord Lead 2, Nord Lead 2x and Nord Lead 3 are all versions of the Nord Lead. Soon after the design of the Clavia Nord Lead, Clavia then later released the Nord Modular; a software-based, modular synthesizer.

In 2007 Clavia released Nord C1. It is a doublemanual organ, which emulates Hammond, Farfisa and VOX organs. The latest release by Clavia is the Nord Wave (October 2007). It is the next keyboard in the Nord Lead series.

Presently, Clavia is a Swedish company consisting of twenty employees; all manufacturing five general product lines. Many of the early Clavia designs have been discontinued (i.e. Nord Lead, Nord Lead 2, ddrum), although they still continue to release many new replacement products such as the Nord Modular G2.

Company Departments

R&D Department

This department consists of a hardware concept designer and five programmers.

Marketing, Sales & Support

Three people work with the marketing, sales and support group at Clavia. Two of these individuals are purchasers and one is a financial controller.